


Loose Every Knot

by Minutia_R



Series: As I Piece by Piece Replace Myself [1]
Category: Cyteen Series - C. J. Cherryh
Genre: Gen, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1529318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Ari wondered who the Bok clone belonged to, and why they wanted someone to make noise on a piano for them when everyone else complained about long waiting times to get lab assistants and nurses and Security.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loose Every Knot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cordialcount](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordialcount/gifts).



Noise spilled into the hallway. It wasn’t pretty, like the songs you sometimes got on e-tapes, but it was supposed to be music, Ari could tell. It set her nerves on edge and made her want to give the notes a jerk, the way Maman jerked her sweater to make it sit straight.

“What’s that?”

“That’s the Bok clone,” said Alisa, pulling on her hand.

So they walked on past, because Ari had to go to Hospital for another blood test and then meet Maman for lunch, and left the strange ugly music behind them.

_Clone_ meant genetically identical individual, like Val and Glen and Sasha down in AG, or like Ari’s own Alisa and Ginny who worked in the birthlabs. They were azi, and some people called them _annies_ which was a nasty word and you mustn’t say it, but nobody called them _the clone_ like some _thing._

Ari wondered who the Bok clone belonged to, and why they wanted someone to make noise on a piano for them when everyone else complained about long waiting times to get lab assistants and nurses and Security.

But it turned out the Bok clone wasn’t azi, and the apartment in the part of the House nearly as nice as Ari’s was her own; when reporters came and tried to interview her they called her _sera Bok_ , and the grownups called her _Estelle_ \--at least to her face, when she showed it, which wasn’t often.

She came to Maman’s funeral. She didn’t say anything, but she was the only one there who looked like Ari felt. Mad, just mad at everyone and everything because there was no one in particular to be mad at. Because it hurt to breathe and it hurt to think and there was nothing else do about it but be mad.

“Why does the Bok clone look like that?” she asked Alisa later.

“Rejuv failure,” said Alisa.

**Author's Note:**

> It was really hard to pin down when Estelle Bok II lived. The characters in _Cyteen_ tend to speak of her as a historical figure, not someone they had personally met; on the other hand at one point it's said that the Nine in her time took too much of an interest in her--implying that she lived after the formation of the government of Union. I have chosen for my own purposes to put her in Ari I's childhood, and interpret the reference to the Nine as a pre-secession Union (or proto-Union) government body. As far as I can tell there's nothing to contradict this?
> 
> Also, in Ari II's time, azi with the same geneset would also have names with the same first letter (unless they were Alphas, and even then they probably would) but in _Forty Thousand in Gehenna_ the azi don't have letters as part of their designations, so I figured this was a convention that only developed later.
> 
> The title of the story comes from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4:4.6b:
> 
> _When all the desires clinging to the heart fall away, the mortal becomes immortal. When all the knots of desire strangling the heart are loosened, liberation occurs._
> 
> _As the snake discards its skin, leaving it lifeless on an anthill, so the soul free from desire discards the body, and unites with God who is eternal life and boundless light._

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Loose Every Knot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2398535) by [nickelmountain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelmountain/pseuds/nickelmountain)




End file.
